Romania has made no progress in making political funding more transparent

Romania has made some steps in improving the incriminations of bribery and influence trading, but hasn’t achieved any progress in making political funding more transparent, a recent Council of Europe report shows. The Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) has published its Second Compliance Report on Romania22_Romania_2ndRC_EN.pdf) on Tuesday, April 14. The report examines Romania’s progress in implementing GRECO’s suggestions on dealing with public and private sector corruption and with political party funding. Romania has implemented satisfactorily only seven of the twenty recommendations GRECO made in its Third Round Evaluation Report1_Romania_Two_EN.pdf), adopted in 2010. Nine recommendations remain or have been partly implemented, and four recommendations have still not been implemented, according to the compliance report. Moreover, concerning the transparency of political funding, Romania has not used the additional two years’ time since the adoption of the first Compliance Report, to accomplish any progress, the same document shows. This is why GRECO decided to ask the Romanian authorities for a report on the progress made in implementing the recommendations, by June 30, 2015, at the latest. “A draft law on amendments to the Law no. 334/2006 on the financing of activities of the political parties and election campaigns is currently in Parliament. If adopted, it would bring a series of improvements,” according to GRECO’s report. “GRECO wishes to underline that clear, consistent and effective rules on the supervision of political financing are of utmost importance,” the same report states. However, Romania has not implemented the vast majority of recommendations issued on political funding transparency. "Under these circumstances, GRECO has no choice but to consider the situation as globally unsatisfactory.” GRECO notes that the incriminations of bribery and influence trading in Romania comply to a larger extent with the international standards, following the entry into force of the new Criminal Code on 1 February 2014, together with additional amendments approved at an earlier stage. However, further progress is needed. The Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) is a Council of Europe body that aims to improve the capacity of its members to fight corruption by monitoring their compliance with anti-corruption standards. It helps states to identify deficiencies in national anti-corruption policies, prompting the necessary legislative, institutional and practical reforms. Currently it comprises the 47 Council of Europe member states, Belarus and the USA. Romania’s richest convicted to two years and a half in jail